Harvard 2020 Waitlist Discussion

@basketlax44 means you’re still on the waitlist and may be offered admission during a later wave if someone chooses not to accept or another spot opens up

So I guess the next round will come after the 20th?

^^ If Admissions adheres to the timetable of past years, the second round will occur just before Memorial Day, which would be next week, May 23-27.

@gibby I’d add to your list Steve Schwarzman, founder of Blackstone Group, who has had a spectacular career and is now personally worth over $10 billion but was rejected by Harvard College when he applied there many years ago. He was so put out by this that he called the Harvard admissions office and spoke to the dean, but still didn’t get in. So he had to go to Yale, to which last year he donated $150 million to create a student center. Apparently, after he’d become rich and famous, the Harvard dean wrote him to acknowledge that they probably got that one wrong: http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-steve-schwarzman-rejection-2015-5

Would it be unwise at this point to send any more updates? I already sent a LOCI as well as having both my counselor and my speech and debate coach (whose son currently attends Harvard) write letters of recommendation. They were all sent before 11 April. I’ve since won some awards in speech and debate, and placed 2nd at a math competition. I would keep it very brief and just send it as a means of reemphasizing my high interest in Harvard. Would it be seen as annoying/desperate or could it help boost my odds? I would probably also explicitly state that I’d accept a spot on the z-list (something I didn’t do in my LOCI because I didn’t know it existed). Thank you very much for any and all help!

@tedamundo I don’t think those awards are what’s going to be what gets you in… If you really think it’s worth it then I would email but I think everything that the email would contain is included somewhere else in your application. For example, you’ve already stated your interest, they get that. Also the debate and math awards are represented elsewhere and unless you won nationals or something crazy they won’t place high emphasis on it. Even though it’s hard just wait it out and hopefully good news will come!

@margo41 yeah i mean i was definitely leaning that way just because (as you can see) i havent sent anything additional yet. itd be wise to just keep waiting and hoping! thanks a million.

any estimates on how many students were outright rejected already?

My friend going to Harvard next year says that someone accepted off the waitlist is already on the Harvard group chat on facebook. Conversely, he also know someone who was rejected already, so I guess this is already enough but I want to know what the numbers are looking like now.

^^ Not sure what significance this has, but my back of the envelope calculations based upon the below Crimson articles is anywhere from 30,500 to 31,000 students were outright rejected.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/12/11/early-action-class-2020/
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/04/college-admits-2037/

39,041 (Total applications) - 2037 (Total admits from SCEA and RD cycle) - 4673 (deferred applicants from SCEA round) - 12 (withdrawn applications SCEA) - 106 (incomplete SCEA applications) - 1500 (waitlisted students – total guess) = 30,713 students outright rejected (not accounting for withdrawn or incomplete RD applications)

@gibby Thanks for the information. You have done a lot of research to get numbers. Your waitlist number is probably accurate because they say it is about the same size as the class (1600 or so). But aren’t you counting certain deferred applicants from SCEA round twice? If they were admitted in RA, they would be in the total admits (2037) or if they were waitlisted, they would be on the waitlist numbers? They get put back into the RA pool and go through the entire process again but they don’t count twice in the number of applications, do they?

^^ The question @premstudent posed “how many students were outright rejected” so SCEA deferred applicants are not in that category. FWIW: I used Harvard’s total application number (39,041) which I’m assuming doesn’t count SCEA deferred applicants twice.

I believe they were trying to ask how many students were already released from the waitlist when they asked how many students have been outright rejected.

^^ Well, that’s a complete unknown, as Harvard doesn’t publish how many students they waitlisted, nor how many chose to remain on the waitlist, or how many were released after the first round and how many currently remain on the waitlist.

In which case, nobody outside of Harvard admissions knows, because none of us know how many were/are on the waitlist. Any numerical answers presented here would be supposition.

@skieurope right, I thought this was a known fact by now.

My question was really, how many people have heard of applicants who have been rejected from the wait list and accepted and still a question mark. For example, my other two friends are still on the wait list like me, while one of my colleagues who was already accepted early said that he has heard people in both situations (accepted and rejected from the wait list).

@gibby Do you have any idea how many SCEA deferred applicants were accepted/waitlisted (therefore not rejected) RD?

@JDBoi78: Harvard usually doesn’t release that information. In fact, the first time Harvard indirectly announced that information was last December through a Boston Globe article: https://www.boston.com/news/education/2015/12/11/harvard-accepts-record-low-percentage-of-early-applicants

Any hopes for tomorrow?

Does anyone know if calls will be going out today?

^^ There are only two ways of finding out: (a) Call the Admissions Office yourself and ask or (b) Wait for a fellow waitlister to post that they’ve been notified today.